Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#61

Post by digi_owl » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

51Cards wrote: post #35

pricechild wrote: post #3

I've been following https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/Firefox56AddonW... It's surprised me the amount some people rely on addons for their workflow and the amount of effort they will be going through to resist this change come 57. For my usage, I've found Firefox Klar/Focus (which I believe already include the speed improvements from 57+?) on Android and have been extremely impressed.

I'll be doing the same, staying on 56 for quite awhile. This transition has been very poorly managed by Mozilla. I understand the advantages to Quantum but they have left a very large percentage of their extension developers hanging. Web Extensions is not mature enough for many of the large extensions to be ported but despite that they are proceeding with this transition anyhow. If I was an affected extension develop…

Speaking of pale, i guess there is always Pale Moon...

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#62

Post by SAI_Peregrinus » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:05 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #34

ReidZB wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's being migrated: https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/08/01/noscripts-migrati... There's also uMatrix as a replacement.

uMatrix isn't a replacement for NoScript. uMatrix lets you do some javascript blocking, but has none of the other features of NoScript. Several of those features are not available from anything other than NoScript. Eg. I haven't seen any other content blocker implement anything like NoScript's surrogate scripts feature.

NoScript also isn't a superset of the capabilities of uMatrix. Both can do things the other can't.

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#63

Post by mozoldie » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:06 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #21

pricechild wrote: post #3

I've been following https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/web/Firefox56AddonW... It's surprised me the amount some people rely on addons for their workflow and the amount of effort they will be going through to resist this change come 57. For my usage, I've found Firefox Klar/Focus (which I believe already include the speed improvements from 57+?) on Android and have been extremely impressed.

> which I believe already include the speed improvements from 57+? Interestingly Firefox Focus uses WebKit (/Blink?), since that's what Android's webview provides. Firefox for Android should get the improvements around version 58 or 59. Also good to note, for people planning to stick with an older Firefox for as long as they can: Firefox 52 is an Extended Support Release, and as such will actually be actively support…

Yes, Focus uses WebView. On newer Android versions it's actually provided directly by Chrome (Android 6+ IIRC), on older Android's (Android 5) it's a separate package that's still built from the same sources. (Android 4 is more complicated but also not supported by Focus for that reason.)

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#64

Post by mozoldie » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:07 PM UTC

maxpert wrote: post #2

Nice to see FF picking up momentum again. I don't want to use Chrome because I don't trust Google with my data (using Chromium right now). Can't wait to switch back, once it's GA.

I would love to see some evidence for this. The privacy policy contradicts you, hence I would treat this as FUD in absence of actual evidence: https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/privacy/index.html#ser...

(Just make sure you don't sign chromium into your google account. If you sign into your firefox account in firefox, then data is also uploaded, albeit in an encrypted format.)

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#65

Post by saberworks » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:10 PM UTC

StevePerkins wrote: post #49

saberworks wrote: post #46

Frustrated by the new "screenshots" tool. The "save" button automatically uploads your screenshot up to mozilla servers. The "download" button saves it to your computer. It seems completely backwards. The "save" button should save it to my computer (there's no reason call something a "download" when it's already local). The "download" button should be replaced with an "upload & share" button that sends it to mozilla'…

On your second point, I'm running the 57 beta and am not sure what you're talking about. It's true that there is no "always on" status bar at the bottom. However, when I hover over a link, its URL does appear in the bottom-left corner. Exact same behavior as Chrome.

Thanks to you and others for pointing this out. I've been using status 4 evar addon since they removed the status bar. I think the original behavior when they removed the status bar was to have a tooltip popup with the URL, but looks like it has changed since then. Does it popup immediately or is it like the tooltip where you have to hover for a couple of seconds before it shows up? I'll try removing my addon to check. Note that the addon allows me to configure how long the delay is (current setting=0ms) and how long it stays there after I move my mouse.

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#66

Post by phireal » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:14 PM UTC

saberworks wrote: post #65

StevePerkins wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On your second point, I'm running the 57 beta and am not sure what you're talking about. It's true that there is no "always on" status bar at the bottom. However, when I hover over a link, its URL does appear in the bottom-left corner. Exact same behavior as Chrome.

Thanks to you and others for pointing this out. I've been using status 4 evar addon since they removed the status bar. I think the original behavior when they removed the status bar was to have a tooltip popup with the URL, but looks like it has changed since then. Does it popup immediately or is it like the tooltip where you have to hover for a couple of seconds before it shows up? I'll try removing my addon to chec…

It takes a fraction of a second to pop up (maybe a few hundred milliseconds).

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#67

Post by digi_owl » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

DavideNL wrote: post #40

I wish they would finally fix the annoying pinch-to-zoom which doesn't work properly like in Safari and Chrome... (If you zoom on a site with text and images in Firefox the page layout gets messed up which makes it impossible to read...)

Best i can tell, they have basically hooked that up to the text scaling rather than anything like what you find on phones.

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#68

Post by saberworks » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

phireal wrote: post #66

saberworks wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks to you and others for pointing this out. I've been using status 4 evar addon since they removed the status bar. I think the original behavior when they removed the status bar was to have a tooltip popup with the URL, but looks like it has changed since then. Does it popup immediately or is it like the tooltip where you have to hover for a couple of seconds before it shows up? I'll try removing my addon to chec…

It takes a fraction of a second to pop up (maybe a few hundred milliseconds).

Yeah just confirmed by removing the addon. The url shows up but only after an annoying delay and an animated fade-in. Ugh.

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#69

Post by DerfNet » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:16 PM UTC

saberworks wrote: post #46

Frustrated by the new "screenshots" tool. The "save" button automatically uploads your screenshot up to mozilla servers. The "download" button saves it to your computer. It seems completely backwards. The "save" button should save it to my computer (there's no reason call something a "download" when it's already local). The "download" button should be replaced with an "upload & share" button that sends it to mozilla'…

honest question, why would anyone use an in-browser screenshot tool when screenshot tools already come pre-installed in basically every operating system?

can Firefox's screenshot tool be disabled? I'd like to switch back from Chrome due to Big Brother concerns but not if Firefox is making questionable choices like this.

Re: Firefox 56: Last Stop Before Quantum

#70

Post by mook » Fri, Oct 06, 2017, 4:17 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #12

cyphar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. I'm fairly sure that if the Firefox developer team could support XUL with the new internals, they would (just look at the insane backlash for a source of motivation). But they didn't, and there must be a reason. Likely it's due to how integrated XUL is with the internals of Firefox and that couldn't gel with the Rust rewrites.

It's because of the killer combo of increased sandboxing, multi-process architecture and performance constraints. I think they couldn't keep everything together with the degree of access old plugins had to Firefox internals. So at some point they had to rip off the band aid.

They did have the choice to not ship the increased sandboxing, multi-process architecture and performance constraints until three months after the new extension APIs were ready. They didn't because they thought the trade-off wasn't worth it.